Female Circumcision vs Male Circumcision (conclusion)

As I hope you have read in the previous couple of blogs, male and female circumcision are indeed linked. That is not to say that they are one and the same. They are very similar. They do much of the same things for much of the same reasons. There are obviously many differences. They are performed in different cultures. One is secular one isn't. Male circumcision (other than botches) is at least relatively uniform. Female circumcision has some variety.

One of the obvious comments that comes up with this discussion is "female circumcision is far worse than male circumcision." Well it may or may not be. This is up for debate. However, it really isn't important when you stop and think about it. Is rape ever justified because it is better than murder? Of course not. Why then is one procedure justified because it could have been worse? In other words, it's not a competition. The take home message is that these procedures are linked, not identical. When you look at the cold hard facts you cannot possibly deny it. There is just no getting around it.

Now why do I even post this? American's think very little about other cultures. We are among the worst in the world at judging other cultures by our cultural norms while we remain oblivious to the similarities. Think on a bigger scale. What are the driving forces at work here? Why are we in the situations that we are in? How different are we really?